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Before jumping into this, let me say that's what popular isn't the same thing as what's important. So, I'm giving you a twofer list. The first is the most popular of my stories, and then there are the stories, which I think are the most important for Linux's future. OK? OK!

Things move pretty fast in the open source development world. A new kernel release comes out around every three months. Projects like GNOME, KDE, and PostgreSQL pop out releases every six months, as well as some major Linux distros. Open source development moves at a rapid and relentless pace. It's refreshing, then, to see an open source developer reminding people to have a little patience.

Welcome to The H's look back at 2009. We've categorised events by what The H thinks was full of win, who was getting on the failboat and what made us just say "Meh". From the corporate giants and how they handled open source and the community to the battle to be the best browser, and from the best new open source to the worst mis-steps in the community.

We recently asked readers for requests on new articles you’d like to see (and thanks for all the great ideas!). One such request was a beginner’s guide to Arch Linux. As a Linux distro addict, I’ve heard of Arch many times over the years but for some reason, I’d never actually given it a shot. In particular, one aspect that’s always interested me has been Arch’s homegrown package management system, pacman. Today we’ll be finding out what Arch is all about, how to use it, and what makes it special.

In 2009, mobile consumer devices including netbooks, e-readers, tablets, MIDs, PMPs, and mobile phones were increasingly dominated by embedded Linux or the Linux-based Android. LinuxDevices presents four updated showcases of story summaries for netbooks, phones, and other portable devices, recalls 2009 highlights ranging from the Kindle to the Droid, and looks in on new rumors about the Google Nexus One and Chrome OS netbook design.

Are you creative enough to win? Enter and find out. As promised yesterday, this is my potential solution to the Linux survival question: A Linux Commercial--created by you--and it's a contest. Sound exciting? You creative types will now have a chance to create your own short film/video/commercial for Linux. Give Linux a face, a voice, a rap, a song, a cool theme--whatever! The sky's the limit and I want to see your best work on this project. Create a short video, upload it to YouTube and let's see what happens.

I think it is time that Sugar Labs and Sugar developers to realize that the success or failure of Sugar does not depend on its ability to play YouTube videos. Not because is not important but because there is very little chance to penetrate this market dominated by Microsoft and Apple. Like it or not Sugar Learning Platform's success or failure lays on its 1 million users with XO-1 (and hopefully XO-1+). If they are successful and happy and the data pile in to support it, everybody will pay attention and traction will be gained even in the developed world. However, even then Sugar's aim should be the virgin markets.

Long-frustrated network neutrality advocates headed into 2009 with high hopes. After all, there was a new administration headed by a man whose campaign promises included the assurance that he would "take a back seat to no one" on the issue, a decidedly Democratic Congress and a general warming to the idea that unfettered access to content and applications on the Internet was somehow essential to the new economy and the sacrosanct rights of the First Amendment. In many ways, they weren't disappointed. But the gears in Washington turn slowly, and, for all the talk and proposals, 2009 saw little material action on the Net neutrality front. Next year will be different.

In part 3 of our gamers recommendations we present more strategy games, puzzles, card games, language skill training and more. To be continued..

A post on the Ubuntu Tweak blog points out that the new 0.5 version release should come today: I plan to make it online at the the last day of 2009: I don’t want to take this task to the new year, because I’ve been developed for them over half year! Ubuntu Tweak 0.5 will come with a redesigned UI (but version 0.6 will suffer major UI changes), XFCE specific features and most importantly: the ability to fetch online database to keep the ppplication information up-to-date. That means that you will be able to keep your applications and sources up-to-date without updating Ubuntu Tweak.

Free software made steady progress in 2009, even if it didn't have the excitement of previous years.

It's been over a year since I wrote about my conversion to a Linux based digital media environment, and since it's the holiday season (or just after) I thought it was time to update the story, and describe some new Linux based devices I'm using that others might find useful.

Editors' Note: The author's main source is not very reputable in my opinion and I see a lot of old information copied and pasted as one liners throughout the article. I would take anything gleaned from it with a grain of salt at best. - Scott

Steve Balmer, the CEO of Microsoft gets pretty scared by the success of Linux & other Open Source Software. Microsoft wants to hire a so-called "Linux and Open Office Compete Lead", as the job description in one their recent marketing job ads shows.

Today I’d like to talk to you about Linux Mint 8, AKA Helena. I’ve said this many times before, but the codenames still sound a little tacky to me. The distro itself is anything but tacky though and it’s been one of my firm favourites in the past. How would this release stack up? Well, I’ll tell you…

Almost everywhere I go I find MS-Outlook, MS-Office, MS-IExplorer and Adobe Acrobat reader. Some of these installations even lack MS-Project, MS-Visio and in some cases even MS-Access. If those really were the only tools at my disposal, I would call it working with "stone axes and bear skins".

A public letter from the President of the FreeBSD Foundation which discusses the future of the organization, it's value/worth and other items. In 2009, the FreeBSD project had the misfortune of losing two long time contributors: John Birrell and Jean-Marc Zucconi. I chatted with John recently, during this year's BSDCAN, so his death was all the more shocking. It forced me to recognize my own mortality and to consider what contributions from our lives remain after we pass away. Reviewing the heritage of FreeBSD it becomes clear that our work on this project takes on a life of its own. John and Jean-Marc's efforts live on in FreeBSD.

Lower the Lifeboats and hoist the Mains'l, this is going to be a rough ride. While companies worldwide look for ways to reduce costs, shed dead weight from their labor resources and streamline their businesses, it makes me wonder if Linux will survive the global economic meltdown. Oh, I know it will survive in terms of us geeks who use it and tout its goodness. It will survive in ISP data centers, some cloud-based businesses and as the de facto platform for virtualization. But will businesses such as hospitals, law firms, trucking companies and retail stores adopt it for their productive operating system of choice?

The NTP service that uses network-time servers to keep your computer's clock from drifting is another thing that Ubuntu includes by default but must be added to Debian if you want to use it.

Google's Android market is bursting with great applications. We look at some of the best for your phone.